Hats off to Mr. Steve for pointing us in the direction of this article.

Apparently today is the 25th anniversary of the original emoticon.  That’s right… happy birthday to :-).  There’s a lot of discussion in the article about the problem of making tone of voice clear in an increasingly typed world.  And it’s certainly true that our little emoticon friends serve a logical purpose in pointing out sarcasm and amusement.  By now there must be hundreds of different colorful, sometimes even animated, smilies now - all stemming from a simple need to express the emotion behind a sentiment when body language and vocal patterns aren’t available cues.  Personally, in my emails you see a lot of this smiley =).  These are a useful short-hand and a nice, simple way to get more complex thoughts across.

But the problem for me comes near the end of the article: “In some ways, he added, they also give people ‘the ability not to think as hard about the words they’re using.’”

Wait a minute.  While I may certainly have less angst about whether suzyface2003 may misinterpret my innocent joke about her bff (that’s best friend forever… in text message… I think), I’m not sure anyone writing in the online arena needs any freedom to think LESS about the words they’re using (the spelling alone gives me cold sweats).  Language is powerful, and while it certainly can and should be augmented by emotional cues - whether in person or online - to suggest that we should take these tools as an opportunity to be less thoughtful and intentional about the way we communicate is a shame… and it’s irresponsible.  Emoticons have become part of the language of online and it’s important to understand them, and heck, enjoy them.  But it’s also important to remember that communication is difficult and multi-layered, and to remove too much thought from the process lowers our ability to connect… and probably lowers our IQ a little too.

**I found the emoticon image here.

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